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NEW YORK -- Even as he’s taken the reins of film’s biggest franchise, Joss Whedon has toyed and tinkered with homegrown projects produced outside the system — the smash Web series “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along” in 2008 or the financed-on-a-shoestring update of “Much Ado About Nothing” released to theaters last year. They are, the “Avengers” director and wife-producing partner Kai Cole believe, part of a necessary attempt to build new means of production and distribution. Whedon will test those boundaries even further starting Sunday night. In the latest novel example of digital experimentation, Whedon and Cole’s Bellwether...

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NEW YORK -- Even as he’s taken the reins of film’s biggest franchise, Joss Whedon has toyed and tinkered with homegrown projects produced outside the system — the smash Web series “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along” in 2008 or the financed-on-a-shoestring...

Satellite TV giants DirecTV and Dish Network are looking for a landslide this fall — in political dollars.
For the first time, satellite broadcasters will be jockeying with other media outlets for a share of political spending that could top $3 billion...

Satellite broadcaster Dish Network wants the government to block Comcast Corp.'s proposed purchase of Time Warner Cable.
In meetings with top Federal Communications Commission officials earlier this week, Dish said a combination of Comcast and Time...

The Al Jazeera America television network is rejecting claims it owes former Vice President Al Gore and his business partner $65 million.
Last week, Gore and business partner Joel Hyatt sued the satellite TV service owned by the Qatari royal family for...

With new content providers blooming like tomato plants in June and more new shows than anyone can reasonably watch, the television awards season offers a brutal winnowing process. Only a handful of programs that premiered this qualifying year are likely...

Remember the vuvuzela, the long plastic horn whose sound polluted both stadiums and television broadcasts during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa?
Of course you do. When 40,000 of them were played together, it sounded like a swarm of angry bees -- and,...

Netflix has emerged as one of the biggest foes of Comcast's proposed merger with Time Warner Cable.
Despite a recent agreement in which the digital programmer agreed to pay the cable and broadband giant for a direct connection to its 20 million...

All the empty seats began to frustrate Jack Kent Cooke.
The Canadian entrepreneur brought professional hockey to Los Angeles with an expansion team — the Kings — in the mid-1960s. At the very least, he expected to sell tickets to fellow Canadians who had...

In what is billed as one of the nation's largest corporate-sponsored community service days, Comcast executives participated in improvement projects across the country -- including at an elementary school near Universal Studios in Los Angeles.
On...

After the coffee. Before gearing up for a long week.
The Skinny: If you read stories about Aereo while watching episodes of "Sons of Anarchy," you will be in for some very weird dreams. That's all I'll say about that. Today's headlines...

Cable companies Comcast Corp. and Charter Communications have agreed to a $20-billion deal that would exchange subscribers in numerous markets, including Los Angeles, should Comcast prevail in its bid to acquire Time Warner Cable.
Nearly 280,000 homes in...

After the coffee. Before the first day of the cable show.
The Skinny: The big shots of the cable industry are in town for the National Cable & Telecommunications Assn's annual convention so I'll be stuck at the convention center for the next few...

EVERETT, Wash. -- The numbers tell the story in the lovely but dangerous Stillaguamish Valley, site of a deadly March landslide, one of the worst natural disasters in Washington state history.
Thirty-seven days spent searching for victims -- first...

Speculation continues that ownership of Formula One might be on the verge of changing hands.
Canadian fashion tycoon Lawrence Stroll has been in talks about buying part of the international racing series, Britain's Sky News reported last week, and he's...

Jack Ramsay, a Hall of Fame basketball coach who led the Portland Trail Blazers to the 1977 NBA championship before he became a broadcaster, died in his sleep early Monday in Naples, Fla., the team announced. He was 89.
Ramsay coached in the NBA for...

Cable companies Comcast Corp. and Charter Communications have agreed to a complex $19.5-billion deal to divvy up subscribers — including parts of Los Angeles, Riverside and Ventura counties.
Comcast is already attempting to take over Time Warner Cable...

You couldn't say the crime is being committed by stealth. Quite the contrary: Tom Wheeler, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is aiming to slay net neutrality in broad daylight. The murder weapon is a proposal to allow Internet service...

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti wants the Dodgers available in every home in the city.
In welcoming remarks at the annual National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. convention being held here, Garcetti said he wants Time Warner Cable and the Dodgers...

The cable industry's top executives gathered in Los Angeles for their annual convention to show off new technologies and boast about a bright future.
"We spark the cylinders of innovation," said Michael Powell, president and chief executive...

Wall Street is betting that the cable industry will successfully navigate an increasingly competitive landscape.
On Tuesday, top financial analysts gave a mostly upbeat assessment of the industry.
To be sure, Wall Street banks have done well...